‘One giant leap for mankind’: 51 years since moon landing

Fifty-one years ago, US astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon. 

US astronaut Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 spacesuit on display at a museum.

Photo: PAP/EPA/ERIK S. LESSER

Hundreds of millions of people all over the world listened to his first words from the lunar surface and watched televised images from the Apollo 11 space mission.

Among those watching the historic event on July 20, 1969 was Mirosław Hermaszewski, a Polish military pilot who made his own trip into space nine years later.

Mirosław Hermaszewski, a retired air force pilot who became Poland’s first and only astronaut in the summer of 1978. Photo: PAP/Leszek Szymański

Radio Poland’s Elżbieta Krajewska has this report.

Click on the audio player above to listen.